The debacle that God’s Will visited upon the Republican party earlier this month was not greatly mourned by Torontonians, if the cheers of those gathered at the election party I attended were anything to go by.

The evidence of our current mayor dramatically and (one would like to think) anomalously to the contrary, the citizens of Toronto are a level-headed constituency: relieved to see the lunatic fringe to the south get comeuppance for its pronouncements on rape, taxes, guns, climate change, marriage, fiscal policy, health care, immigration, the invasion of Iran and how much time off work women need in order to get home to make dinner for their husbands.

The reaction here was even a little smug. It was youthful, multicultural Toronto that agreed most enthusiastically with those pundits who, after the election, were quick to point out something that had somehow escaped their professional attentions throughout the eternity of the campaign. And what that something was, put in Toronto terms, is this: the base of the Republican party looks pretty much like your average audience at the symphony, or the ballet, or the opera, or the theatre.

The dog on the car roof was bad. Binders of women was bad. Describing half the population of America as lazy whiners was bad. Being endorsed by Donald Trump was really, really bad. But what really sunk the Romney campaign — so we all seem now to agree — is demography.

The base of the Republican party is dwindling, as every photograph of downcast Romney supporters on election night made obvious. I’ve never seen so many pairs of straining chinos in one room. There are more youthful, less monochromatic audiences at a Neil Diamond concert. American Republicans — so it seemed obvious to worldly, young, cosmopolitan Torontonians — are too old, too white and too comfortable to do anything much more interesting than die off over the next few years.

Jeb Bush in 2016? That rather depends on how many angry, Caucasian senior citizens make it to 2016. Politics is a cruel game and, as the brilliant statistician Nate Silver made clear, there’s nothing crueler than the numbers that drive it. At a certain point, if you are on the downward slope of the demographic cycle, it’s wise to stop buying green bananas.

There are two ways to encourage citizens to identify with a nation’s culture. The first is by lying to them, a strategy that has its drawbacks. It’s really expensive, for one thing — as Karl Rove’s $300 million super PAC campaign made clear in the recent American election. And for another, it doesn’t work. As Rove’s $300 million super PAC campaign made clear in the recent American election.

(In a similar vein, I very much doubt that a single Canadian feels better about Canada because “we” — a handful of British troops stationed in a god-forsaken outpost on the north shore of Lake Ontario — stood up to “them” — the invading Americans — in the War of 1812. To say our federal government’s view of history is simplistic misses our federal government’s point. Propaganda always is.)

The other way is to develop, nurture and support a thriving culture — and to educate our children and encourage our new citizens to take part in it. To be fair, many arts institutions go to great lengths to bring a younger, more diverse audience to their venues. But they do so within the churlish context of our federal, provincial and (smallest and most churlish of all) municipal commitment to the arts.

Until the audiences in our symphony halls and theatres, our opera houses and art galleries, look like the Toronto we see on our streets, our cultural institutions have the same future as the Republicans. Which is to say: not much.

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